Moving Cars and Final Fours

This weekend was up and down.  Friday afternoon, Jester, Daughter, Lollipop, and Harley piled into The Blaab, picked me up at work, and we drove to the greater Roanoke, Indiana area to visit Jester's sister to celebrate the 30th anniversary of her birth.

On the way there, we were on US-30 in Wanatah, Indiana –- a town whose claim to fame is that it was a stop on the Abraham Lincoln Funeral Train -- when we decided it would be a good time for a "shit break" (Daughter's words, not mine).  We got into the left turn lane to pull into the Speedway right there at the US-30/US-421 intersection.  you know the one.  We're behind this white Nissan Maxima circa 1996.  The arrow turns from red to green, and nothing happens.  I honk.  The woman in the car in front of me raises her hands as if to say "What do I do?"  I point at the green light and honk again.  Same response.  I tell Jessie, "Give me my samurai sword.  Things are about to get massacre-y."  "Fine," she says, unsheathing the greatest white elephant party gift ever.  I give her one last warning honk.  This chick, probably 18 or 19, clearly corn fed, pops out of her car.  "Bitch wants to tango," Daughter says.  "Then tango we will," I respond, rolling down my window in preparation for a lazy man's lancing.  The chick says, "My battery's dead."  "That's not all that's gonna be dead if you don't move your fucking –- oh," Jester screams.  The chick returns to her car.  Lollipop just sits there, staring stoically at a small stuffed octopus.  Her silence speaks volumes.  Jester implores me to push her car into the Speedway parking lot.  It's been a while since I've been involved in World's Strongest Man type competitions, but why not?

Now bear in mind, I'm still in my business casual work clothes –- a polo shirt tucked into khakis, covered handsomely by a light jacket.  I sprint up to this chick's driver's window, which is rolled down.  She is bawling.  I ask her if she wants me to push her car into the parking lot, and she says something about her boyfriend being on the way to help.  "I didn't ask for your life story," I say, "Just whether you want some fucking help."  "Snatch her ass in a bear trap," I hear Daughter hiss, muffled through the car windows.  The chick says, "Ok" to my extremely generous offer, so I go behind the car.  The green arrow lights up, and I start to push, but nothing is happening.  I pop up and the chick says, "I don't know what to do!"  "Put the car in neutral and steer," I respond, with half a mind to leave her in the middle of the intersection. 

Once I start pushing, though, muscle memory kicks in, and I start hauling ass.  I high-knee it into the parking lot, where it comes to rest in a parking spot.  The chick, still crying because I assume her parents have made it so that she is incapable of handling adversity, says "thanks" and doesn't get out of her car.

I start walking to the Speedway when I realize all of the blood in my body is rushing to my quads.  For the next 2-3 minutes, I was woozy.  I thought I was going to pass out and/or have a heart attack.  "This is how it ends, you beautiful bitch," I huffed to myself, "In a fucking Speedway parking lot in a Lincoln Funeral Train community after performing a good deed."  I took some deep breaths and eventually got my heart rate down below 140 for long enough to piss and change Lollipop's diaper.  I don't think I got back to normal breathing for another 10-15 minutes.  Great workout, though.  Here is photographic evidence of my near-death experience.

So we go on our way and arrive in Roanoke to virtually no fanfare.  Friday night, of course, was IU's Sweet 16 match-up with Kentucky.  If you would have told me before the game that IU was going to score 90 points, I would have assumed we would have won.  I also would have assumed we wouldn't give up 102 points.  It's tough to beat a team that goes to the line 37 times and makes 35.  It's also tough to beat a team of paid professionals.  When Calipari hightails it out of Lexington to coach the Knicks, and it turns out some or all of UK's players were ineligible, be it from taking money, falsifying academic records, or whatever else has happened under Calipari's watch in the past, I wonder if UK will still hang the vacated banner in Rupp.  I bet they will.

Saturday night, we saw Jim Gaffigan live in Ft. Wayne.  That was pretty solid.  He did a set of new material (or new to me, anyway), and then did an encore with his Hot Pockets routine.  The man is quite funny.

And, of course, the Sweet 16 was whittled down to a Final Four:  Kentucky (evil), Ohio State (evil), Louisville (rapey), and Kansas (destroyer of my brackets).  For the first time since 2009, we have a Final Four without one of those annoying cinderellas.  The four teams have a combined 13 national titles (Kentucky 7, Kansas 3, Louisville 2, Ohio State 1) and 49 Final Four appearances (Kentucky 15, Kansas 14, Ohio State 11, Louisville 9).  You didn't think I was going to let you go without dropping some statistical knowledge on your hair, neck, and shoulders, did you?  DID YOU?!  Well, here we go.

Based on past performance of national titles per Final Four appearances, here is how the teams stack up as far as percentage of national titles per Final Fours:

1.  Kentucky:  50% (7/14)

2.  Louisville:  25% (2/8)

3.  Kansas:  23% (3/13)

4.  Ohio State:  10% (1/10)

This year is rare because each of the Final Four teams has already won an NCAA title.  This is only the seventh time this has happened since the NCAA tournament began in 1939.  The other years in which this occurred were 1992, 1993, 1995, 1998, 2007, and 2009.

The 13 combined national titles (which will become 14 come next Monday) is also relatively high.  If you look at every year since the tournament began and count all of the Final Four schools' national titles (whether it was won that year, prior, subsequent, or later vacated), this will be only the 23rd time (out of 73) that the Final Four schools' combined national titles is 12 or greater.  Of course, everything is skewed whenever UCLA is in the Final Four, since they have 11 titles, so below is the list, with the non-UCLA Final Fours in bold.  As you can see, this is only the 6th time the Final Four schools' combined national titles is 12 or greater when UCLA was not in the Final Four.

1.  1975:  21 - UCLA (11), Kentucky (7), Louisville (2), Syracuse (1)

2 (tie).  2008: 19 - Kansas (3), Memphis (0), UCLA (11), North Carolina (5)

2 (tie).  1995:  19 - UCLA (11), Arkansas (1), North Carolina (5), Oklahoma State (2)

4.  1972:  18 – UCLA (11), Florida State (0), North Carolina (5), Louisville (2)

5 (tie).  1976:  17 – Indiana (5), Michigan (1), UCLA (11), Rutgers (0)

5 (tie).  1974:  17 – NC State (2), Marquette (1), UCLA (11), Kansas (3)

5 (tie).  1968:  17 – UCLA (11), North Carolina (5), Ohio State (1), Houston (0)

8 (tie).  1993:  16 - North Carolina (5), Michigan (1), Kentucky (7), Kansas (3)

8 (tie).  1973:  16 – UCLA (11), Memphis State (0), Indiana (5), Providence (0)

8 (tie).  1969:  16 – UCLA (11), Purdue (0), Drake (0), North Carolina (5)

8 (tie).  1967:  16 – UCLA (11), Dayton (0), Houston (0), North Carolina (5)

8 (tie).  1964:  16 – UCLA (11), Duke (4), Michigan (1), Kansas State (0)

13 (tie).  2007: 15 - Florida (2), Ohio State (1), UCLA (11), Georgetown (1)

13 (tie).  1971:  15 – UCLA (11), Villanova (1), Western Kentucky (0), Kansas (3)

15 (tie).  1998:  14 - Kentucky (7), Utah (1), North Carolina (5), Stanford (1)

15 (tie).  1962:  14 – Cincinnati (2), Ohio State (1), Wake Forest (0), UCLA (11)

17 (tie).  2006: 13 - Florida (2), UCLA (11), LSU (0), George Mason (0)

17 (tie).  1997:  13 - Arizona (1), Kentucky (7), Minnesota (0), North Carolina (5)

17 (tie).  1991:  13 - Duke (4), Kansas (3), North Carolina (5), UNLV (1)

17 (tie).  1980:  13 – Louisville (2), UCLA (11), Purdue (0), Iowa (0)

21 (tie).  1992:  12 - Duke (4), Michigan (1), Indiana (5), Cincinnati (2)

21 (tie).  1957:  12 – North Carolina (5), Kansas (3), San Francisco (2), Michigan State (2)

Moving on to another worthless statistic, if you just look at how many titles the schools had won up to that point (and not including that year's title), this year is even rarer.  Here are the top ten years for number of prior national titles for the Final Four teams (with the number of titles up to, but not including, that year):

1.  2008: 17 - Kansas (2), Memphis (0), UCLA (11), North Carolina (4)

2.  1995:  16 - UCLA (10), Arkansas (1), North Carolina (3), Oklahoma State (2)

3.  2007: 14 - Florida (1), Ohio State (1), UCLA (11), Georgetown (1)

4 (tie).  2012:  13 - Kentucky (7), Kansas (3), Louisville (2), Ohio State (1)

4 (tie).  1975:  13 - UCLA (9), Kentucky (4), Louisville (0), Syracuse (0)

6.  1976:  12 – Indiana (2), Michigan (0), UCLA (10), Rutgers (0)

7 (tie).  2006: 11 - Florida (0), UCLA (11), LSU (0), George Mason (0)

7 (tie).  1998:  11 - Kentucky (6), Utah (1), North Carolina (3), Stanford (1)

9 (tie).  1980:  10 – Louisville (0), UCLA (10), Purdue (0), Iowa (0)

9 (tie).  1993:  10 - North Carolina (2), Michigan (1), Kentucky (5), Kansas (2)

Another interesting tidbit:  there are 9 schools with 8 or more Final Fours:  UCLA (18), North Carolina (18), Duke (15), Kentucky (15), Kansas (14), Ohio State (11), Louisville (9), Indiana (8), and Michigan State (8).  This is the 27th year in a row and the 55th year out of the last 56 that at least one of those 9 teams has been in the Final Four.  In fact, one of those teams has been in all but eight Final Fours (1941, 1943, 1947, 1950, 1954, 1955, 1956, and 1985).  Three of those teams have appeared in the same Final Four ten times (1957, 1968, 1972, 1975, 1986, 1991, 1993, 1999, 2005, 2008), but this is the first time the Final Four includes four of those teams.  Chew on that for a minute.